Jamming Prison Phones Will Backfire, Groups Warn Congress

Letting the nation’s prisons jam wireless signals to stop inmates from using contraband mobile phones sets a dangerous precedent and is the wrong solution to a vexing problem, public interests groups told a Senate committee Tuesday, just a day before a hearing to consider a jamming bill.

Mobile phones in prisons became a national issue after a convicted murderer on death row used a smuggled mobile phone to call Texas state Sen. John Whitmire to complain about his treatment. The inmate mentioned that he knew the name, addresses and ages of his kids, scaring the senator, who heads a criminal justice committee. Gang members have also used mobile phones to keep running rackets from inside prison walls and to order the killing of witnesses, leading to the current drive to install mobile phone jamming equipment inside prisons and jails.

Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson, the top Republican on the Senate Commerce committee, has introduced a bill that would, for the first time ever, legalize cellphone jammers use in prisons.

One company CellAntenna hopes to capitalize on the rogue dialing. It has developed a jammer it claims will block only cellphones within a prison and not interfere with public safety equipment and the prisons’ own wireless communication signals.

But public interest groups, including Public Knowledge, the New America Foundation, and the Main Street Project, told the committee in a letter that cited a Wired magazine story that blocking technology is unproven and that blocking is not possible without causing collateral damage.

“Allowing the legal manufacture, importation and sale of jamming equipment will create a loophole that history shows the FCC will find impossible to close,” the groups wrote.

“Jamming prison cellphones would jeopardize public safety because there is no way to jam only phones used by prisoners,” said Harold Feld, legal director for Public Knowledge. “All wireless communications could be shut down within a prison.”

Prisons have used cellphone trackers and mobile phone sniffing dogs to try to find rogue mobile phones, but the devices are in high demand and supply is hard to clamp down on since a guard can makes thousands sneaking in a single cellphone.

Moreover, the large majority of calls and texts are from prisoners to their families — a way to get around the usurious rates that telecoms charge prisoners and their families to stay in touch via payphones.

And since prisoners that keep in touch with their family are less likely to break the law again when they get out, there’s a good public policy reason to find a better solution to the problem — such as cheap phone rates for inmates.

Whatever their crimes, most convicts have parents, children, and others they’re desperate to stay in touch with. Letters are slow, and personal visits often involve expensive, time-sucking travel. Some prisons have public phones for making collect calls, but access is limited, conversations are often monitored, and phone companies often charge much higher rates than on the outside.

A Virginia woman whose husband is six years into a 40-year sentence says she won’t let him use a cellphone because she doesn’t want him to get in any more trouble. As a result, “my phone bill last December was $800,” she says. “That was my whole Christmas bonus.” Between calls she drives seven hours each way, twice a month, to see him in person.

“Cellphones are the best thing since conjugal visits,” says a California con I’ll call Jack. “And being a lifer, I don’t get those.” Jack doesn’t want his real name printed because I spoke to him—several times—on a contraband handset he had procured in the pen, where he’s doing time for second-degree murder. “I call my mom three or four times a week,” he says. “And I text my daughter every night.”

Feld also noted that the blanket prohibition has kept cell phone jammers out of the mainstream, and argued that a single exception could lead to unforeseen circumstances.

“Once such a jamming device is built, it will inevitably become available on a wider basis. Who knows what chaos that will cause?” Feld said.